Nazi newspapers have renewed their campaign to prevent the showing of “Jewish-American” films and to tie up the Hungarian market for German propaganda pictures, such as “Jew Suss” and ” The House of Rothschild,” both of which are anti-Semitic parodies of the American originals and little less than incitations to murder.
Anti-Semitic attacks appearing in the Deutsche Zeitung and other papers in conjunction with publicity for the two films have become so violent that the Jewish community yesterday moved to protest to Interior Minister Keresztes-Fischer.
Nazi organs ascribe the original box-office failure of the “Rothschild” picture to a “Jewish boycott” favoring American pictures. They succeeded in forcing a return engagement and the film is now playing to 62 theaters throughout Hungary.
Meanwhile, “Jew Suss” is making its original appearance in Urania, German-owned cinema in Budapest, and three others in the provinces. To make sure that the film draws an adequate response the German Volksbund is giving away hundreds of free tickets daily and packing the theaters with Nazi cheering sections, sometimes in uniform. As a result, “Jew Suss,” which is entering its third week, is sold out days in advance and has been converted, by force of propaganda, into a box-office hit. The Nazis claim that more than 50,000 persons have seen the film already.
The Deutsche Zeitung’s movie critic makes the following comment on “Jew Suss”: “After seeing this wonderful picture we left the theater with fists clenched in our pockets and our hearts pounding with murder and lust at the sight of the sons of Israel we passed on the streets.”
The hanging scene is uproariously applauded at every performance, as is the sequence where Suss declares, on learning of the birth of a daughter: “My child will never be brought up as a Jew.”
Pesti Ujsag, most violently anti-Semitic Hungarian organ, is running a prize contest for the best amateur criticisms of “Jew Suss.” A typical criticism, written by a girl, was: “I liked the picture so much because every character reminded me of some Jew I had known in real life.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
